The art post outpost: How the music plays on for Leonard Cohen and Sharon Jones
Your weekly roundup of can't-miss arts stories from across the CBC network
Here at CBC Arts, you won't just find our original content — we also bring you the best art posts from across the entire CBC network.
These are the week's can't-miss stories from coast to coast:
Watch Choir! Choir! Choir!'s tribute to Leonard Cohen (CBC Music)
Choral collective Choir! Choir! Choir! — who you may remember from our feature earlier this year — paid tribute to the late great Leonard Cohen the best way there is: through song. The group led a park full of strangers in a massive and moving sing-a-long that included Cohen's biggest hits but that was ultimately about much more than the music itself — what it was really about was coming together to celebrate a life whose impact transcends his time on earth.
- How do you speak to children about grief? This award-winning author is opening a dialogue
- There's a giant art party coming to Honest Ed's, and here's how to be a part of it
- How one Google search proved we need to pay attention to Canada's black history more than ever
'I want to sing. I want to do it till I can't do it': Soul songstress Sharon Jones dead at 60 (CBC News)
After a long battle with pancreatic cancer, legendary soul singer Sharon Jones passed away on Friday. CBC News' obituary highlighted her colourful life, from humble beginnings as a backup singer whose day jobs included a stint as a Rikers Island prison guard to breaking out in the music world at age 40 and becoming a sensation for her pipes. Her last few years alive are a testament to living life to its fullest, telling q in 2014, "Each time I perform, that could be my last night — so I'm going to give you everything I got that night because tomorrow's not promised."
k.d. lang on Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah': 'He was a prophet' (q)
A Canadian icon in her own right, it only makes sense that k.d. lang would be deeply influenced by the work of Leonard Cohen. She spoke with q about the magic of his incomparable "Hallelujah" and why the 1984 song is just as timeless today — something she attributes to Cohen's almost divine way of expression. "It's something beyond us all, including Leonard," she told host Tom Power. "He had this amazing way of translating wisdom from the gods and making it comprehensible to us mere mortals."
- How to become a Chinese shadow puppet master
- Atom Egoyan has woven a monument to memory — with 2000 feet of film
- How one filmmaker got to know his late father through the secret art he left behind
'Consistently provocative' Rebecca Belmore wins $50K visual arts prize (CBC News)
Montreal artist Rebecca Belmore took home this year's Gershon Iskowitz Prize for her striking multidisciplinary work. While the power of her art is undeniable, Iskowitz Foundation president Thomas Bjarnason summed it up perfectly as the award was announced: "a consistently provocative interrogation of the status of our Indigenous peoples through work that tests the relationship of audience, artist and art." (Hear her speak as part of our panel on art and social justice.)
Leonard Cohen's Marianne: Meet the woman behind the music (The Doc Project)
"I heard that voice and I can hear it till this day."
Words that ring true for entire generations of music lovers — but none more than the woman who spoke them. Marianne Ihlen's sun-soaked love affair with Leonard Cohen was immortalized in his songs "So Long, Marianne" and "Bird on a Wire," and this wonderful listen from The Doc Project (originally airing on BBC Radio 4) will whisk you away to the Greek island of Hydra to swim in the story of their romance.
- Attention white straight cisgender male filmmakers: Diversity is not a threat
- Ai Weiwei: How to change the world in 3 easy steps
- Reel Asian at 20: The past, present and future of Canada's largest Asian film festival
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